PRIMARY MISSION ACCOMPLISHED: 1969

After the President and other celebrities departed, the U.S.S.
Hornet continued steaming back to Hawaii, arriving at Pearl
Harbor on the afternoon of July 26. The mobile quarantine facility with
its five passengers* was hoisted
off the ship onto a truck for transfer to Hickam Air Force Base a few
miles away, pausing briefly to acknowledge the greetings of the mayor
and several thousand citizens of Honolulu. At Hickam the trailer was
loaded into a C-141 cargo aircraft, which departed immediately for
Houston.61 Just after midnight the big
plane touched down at Ellington Air Force Base, where a large crowd
awaited a glimpse of the astronauts. Three hours later the crew and
their companions entered their living quarters at the lunar receiving
laboratory, which would be their home for at least the next three
weeks.62 On hand to greet them were the
support personnel who had entered the living quarters the week before: a
clinical pathologist, five laboratory technicians, three stewards,
photography specialist, Brown & Root-Northrop's logistic operations
officer, and a representative of MSC's public affairs office.63

After a day off to recuperate from the stresses of the preceding two
weeks - since July 16 they had been cooped up in very close quarters -
the crew began a week of intensive technical and medical debriefings.
Periodic examinations and blood tests monitored the physiological
effects of their flight and recovery, while the doctors kept a close
watch for any signs of exotic infection. The living quarters were
equipped for routine clinical tests, or even minor surgery; but if a
life-threatening medical emergency arose, whether from recognizable or
unfamiliar causes, the victim would be transferred out to a hospital
regardless of any concern for back-contamination.64

Although all three astronauts were veterans of prior missions, none had
ever spent so much time in space, and post-mission activities had never
been conducted under strict confinement. Thus quarantine quickly became
oppressive, the more so because only meager provision had been made for
recreation. An exercise room was available, as well as a Ping-Pong
table, and they could read or watch television or talk by telephone to
their families, but it was not like being at home. At the conclusion of
the technical debriefing sessions, less than a week after they returned,
they were called upon to comment on operations in the receiving
laboratory. Armstrong was noncommittal, saying that so far it had been
going "about as well as you can expect." Collins's less
tolerant response was, "I want out."65

Since no press conference with the astronauts was scheduled before
quarantine was lifted, reporters' only source of information was a daily
briefing by John McLeaish, the public affairs officer confined in the
crew quarters. Once or twice a day McLeaish briefed the press pool
through a glass wall in the conference room where the crew debriefings
took place. Most of the time he had little to report: everyone inside
was healthy, the astronauts were busy with debriefings or writing their
pilot's reports, and otherwise nothing much was going on.66 And so it remained for the duration of the
three-week quarantine.

* A physician, Dr. William R.
Carpentier, and a technician, John Hirasaki, joined the crew in the
quarantine trailer aboard the recovery ship and remained in quarantine
with them.

64. Idem, "Status Report, John
McLeaish Comments on Crew, 7/28/69, CDT 08:05 AM," July 28, 1969;
Richard S. Johnston, Lawrence F. Dietlein, M.D., and Charles A. Berry,
M.D., eds., Biomedical Results of Apollo, NASA SP-368
(Washington, 1975), p. 418. If indeed there was a serious risk of
contaminating the earth with alien organisms, the decision to breach
quarantine in the event of a life-threatening emergency would have meant
taking that risk rather than sacrificing an astronaut. No one seems to
have contested that decision; perhaps this indicates the real perception
of risk from "moon bugs."